Ten Days That Shook the World · Chapter
Appendix to Chapter III explained
This appendix collects contemporary newspaper editorials, official appeals, and documents from the period immediately surrounding the Bolshevik seizure of power.
What happens
This appendix collects contemporary newspaper editorials, official appeals, and documents from the period immediately surrounding the Bolshevik seizure of power. It includes hostile reactions from the bourgeois and moderate socialist press, a defense of the Bolsheviks as open revolutionaries rather than conspirators, an appeal from the Central Army Committee against insurrection, a detailed account of the night of November 6th when Red Guards and soldiers occupied key institutions, and a lengthy resolution from the Factory-Shop Committees outlining the theory and practice of Workers' Control.
Themes in this chapter
Workers' Control and Economic Transformation
The lengthy resolution from the Factory-Shop Committees articulates a comprehensive vision of Workers' Control over production, distribution, and employment, including the subordination of capitalist interests to a unified industrial plan.
Struggle for Legitimacy and Power
The newspaper editorials and the Central Army Committee's appeal reveal the fierce contest over political legitimacy, with the Bolsheviks accused of being conspirators and traitors while they claimed to represent the will of the masses.
Counterrevolution and Civil War
The Central Army Committee's appeal warns that any violent attempt to depose the Provisional Government will be considered a counterrevolutionary act and repressed by force, foreshadowing the impending civil war.
Characters to notice
- Vladimir Lenin
Mentioned as part of the 'Government of Lenin and Trotsky' in a French newspaper article defending the Bolsheviks as open revolutionaries.
- Leon Trotsky
Mentioned alongside Lenin as part of the Bolshevik government that 'attacks and acts' in contrast to Kerensky's hesitancy.
- Alexander Kerensky
Referenced in the French newspaper article as leading a government that 'discusses and hesitates'.
- Georgi Plekhanov
His paper 'Yedinstvo' is noted to have suspended publication a few weeks after the Bolshevik seizure of power due to lack of subscribers, not suppression.
Key passages
“The most frightful crime of the Bolsheviki against the Revolution is that they impute exclusively to the bad intentions of the revolutionary Government all the calamities which the masses are so cruelly suffering; when as a matter of fact these calamities spring from objective causes.”
The Socialist Revolutionary newspaper 'Dielo Naroda' accused the Bolsheviks of blaming the government for all suffering, when the real causes were objective and beyond anyone's control.
This reflects the moderate socialist critique that Bolshevik propaganda was dishonest and demagogic.
“The Government of Kerensky discusses and hesitates. The Government of Lenin and Trotsky attacks and acts. This last is called a Government of Conspirators, but that is wrong. Government of usurpers, yes, like all revolutionary Governments which triumph over their adversaries. Conspirators—no!”
The French newspaper 'Entente' argued that the Bolsheviks were not conspirators but open revolutionaries who acted decisively, unlike Kerensky's hesitant government.
This defense of the Bolsheviks contrasts with the hostile portrayals in the Russian press.
“Any demonstration to depose this power by violence, at a moment when a Government crisis will infallibly create disorganisation, the ruin of the country, and civil war, will be considered by the Army as a counterrevolutionary act, and repressed by force of arms.”
The Central Army Committee warned that any violent attempt to overthrow the Provisional Government would be treated as counterrevolutionary and met with military force.
This appeal shows the army's official stance against the Bolshevik insurrection.
“Workers' Control is a better security in this respect for the interests of modern society, of the whole people, than the arbitrary will of the owners, who are guided only by their selfish desire for material profits or political privileges.”
The Factory-Shop Committees argued that Workers' Control would better serve society than the selfish decisions of capitalist owners.
This is a key ideological justification for the Bolshevik economic program.
